Grand Junction, Colorado

8/5/08 Tuesday

We were on the next leg of our journey leaving Colorado Springs before 8am. We were driving to Grand Junction, Colorado. The scenery along the way was much better than the scenery through Kansas. We were traveling through the Rockies of Colorado. There were cliffs on both sides of the road. A long hard pull for the truck but it performed admirably. We passed through Vail, Co. which is jumping even in the summer. The ski lifts were taking people to the top of the mountain for the view.
We made very good time so we arrived and were set up in Grand Junction by about 3pm. We had read that there were bike trails by the Colorado River in Grand Junction so we got a map and went out. One part of the trail was very close to the campsite so we started off on the trail. The trails in Colorado are very nice paved trails and this one was no exception. As we were riding along, we noticed the sky was getting darker. We were hoping it was going away from us. We got to a certain point on the trail when we knew the rain was coming our way. We decided it was best to turn around and go back to the truck. By the time we got back to the truck, the sky was very black and there was lightening and thunder but it wasn’t raining. We have found in Co. that the sky gets all black and maybe a few drops come but then the clouds are just there. So, we decided to go a little further to the beginning of the trail and at the first drop of rain we would race back. Well, we made it to the beginning of the trail with no rain but very black skies, so we turned around and started racing back to the truck sure we would be soaked at any minute. We made it back to the truck without one drop and I don’t think it ever did rain. We managed to get in a 15 mile bike ride but we would have liked to have done more.